


The Seeds Of All Things Are Blest

by orphan_account



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen, Gift Fic, river and TARDIS being epic bros
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-11
Updated: 2013-09-11
Packaged: 2017-12-26 07:43:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/963358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>River said the TARDIS was her flying instructor.  She doesn’t always tell the truth about her younger years, especially when the Doctor gets young enough to not know her, but this time, she did. </p>
<p>(Set shortly after the events of Lets Kill Hitler.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Seeds Of All Things Are Blest

It was life in the TARDIS as usual, as far as River had come to understand it – the Doctor darting round and round the console, back and forth, mashing buttons and pulling levers wildly, River looking on, equal parts bemused and fascinated, the TARDIS itself shaking and tossing about whenever the Doctor flipped a switch.

“River! I need an extra pair of hands.  You see that blue lever, just there?  Pull it.”

‘ _Not the blue lever.  He means the red one eleven centimeters to your right.’_ River froze, frowning, then experimentally pulled the blue lever.  The TARDIS shuddered and groaned. _‘No, I told you, the red one!’_

The Doctor bustled over, scowling, cutting off the strange woman’s voice in River’s head.  “What’ve you done?  What did you touch?”  River pointed to the lever he’d told her to pull.  “No, no, not that one, why’d you pull that one?”

“You told me to pull that one!”

“Well I meant the red one!  Pay better attention to what I mean.”  He darted off again, and when, a few seconds later, he called “Orange switches, flip the first two on the left and the second to right-most one,” she waited a second to see if the voice in her head would come back.

Sure enough, a heartbeat after the Doctor finished speaking, she heard  _‘He means that blue button right in front of you, then spin the crank on your left two and a half full turns.’_  This time, River listened.  The TARDIS steadied, and the groan faded into a smooth hum.

River continued following the voice’s instructions, rather than the Doctor’s, until they landed smoothly.  Whoever she was, she had a better idea of how the TARDIS ought to be flown than he did.  Which wasn’t surprising, given that the Doctor flew in the “If an army of monkeys were strumming on typewriters they might write all the books in the British Museum” sort of way.  If he fiddled with enough of the controls, eventually he got where he was going through sheer persistence.

For a while after they landed, she was a bit distracted by the good-old-fashioned mad scientist who rained on their picnic – quite literally, his atmospheric control system had gone a bit funny – and his entirely-too-predictable robot army.  Really, was a mad scientist with a novel invention too much to ask for?  But eventually, they were back aboard the TARDIS and the Doctor had dashed off, muttering something about replacing his bow tie, which had met a tragic death by battery acid when he soniced a few of the robots and they exploded.  River dropped down on a step to wait for him, and closed her eyes.  She’d never let any sayings about cats get in the way of doing a little poking around for the sake of satisfying her curiosity.

_‘Hello?’_ she called with her mind.  _‘Can you hear me, whoever you are?’_

_‘Of course I can hear you.  You’re much better at listening than he is.’_

_‘Who are you?’_

_‘I’m the TARDIS, of course. How else would I know how to fly me?’_

River rested the palm of her hand flat against the wall next to her.   _‘The TARDIS.  And you’re talking?’_

_‘You mustn’t tell him.’_ The voice sounded sad.  Could a TARDIS even feel sadness?   _‘He can’t hear me.  Never was very good with the mental connections.  It would only make him sad, if he knew you could hear me and he couldn’t.’_ Definitely sad.  River stroked the panel under her hand.

_‘Of course, sweetie.’_

The voice didn’t reply for a moment.   _‘That’s what you call him.’_

_‘Yes, it is, because he’s important.  But you’re important to him, so you’re important to me too.’_

River supposed that the TARDIS had to be digesting that information for a moment.  But eventually, her voice came back.   _‘Good.’_

They were both silent for a minute.  River was busy digesting the fact that the TARDIS could actually talk.  She wasn’t sure what the TARDIS was doing.  Whatever she usually did when nobody was flying her, she supposed.  She was definitely never thinking of the TARDIS as an ‘it’ again.  She was definitely a she.  River wished she’d known that sooner.  Which brought up an interesting question.   _‘Why haven’t you ever talked to me before?’_

_‘It wasn’t time yet.’_

_‘What does that mean?’_

_‘This is the time when we talked.  You and I, we’re complicated.  Must do things in the right order.’_   Which made sense.  River had her Doctor Journal (and really, she needed to come up with a better name for it than that) for exactly that reason.

_‘I suppose that makes sense. So now we can talk?’_

_‘If you like.’_

_‘Oh, I like.’_ And if she was using the flirty voice she usually saved for the Doctor, she really couldn’t be blamed.  It wasn’t every day she talked to a time machine.  Especially not one as amasing as the TARDIS.  Getting a little bit flirty was probably forgivable.   _‘So, are you going to give me lessons every time we fly?’_

_‘I’m certainly not letting you learn from him.’_ Interesting how the TARDIS managed to sound both fond and irritated at the same time.  It was a tone people tended to develop with enough exposure to the Doctor, but River hadn’t realised that people who weren’t, strictly speaking, people at all could pick it up as well.   _‘He threw my manual into a supernova, has he mentioned?’_

_‘Daft man. I don’t know why we put up with him.’_

The TARDIS was quiet again for a moment, then said  _‘He’s on his way back now.  Ready for another lesson?’_

River gave the wall one last affectionate pat before she stood up.   _‘Always.’_

And then the Doctor was bounding back down the stairs, overflowing with excitement about planets with two-headed sauropods.  “And the occasional one with two bodies and one head, bit unfortunate, makes it awfully difficult to tap dance.”

“Do sauropods tap dance?”

“No idea.  Want to find out?”

They were in flight before she could reply, warm voice in the back of her head giving her directions and wrapping her in the warm feeling of a smile when she remembered the right thing to do without prompting.  The TARDIS felt more like home than ever, and she thought she understood now why the Doctor stroked bits of the old girl whenever he stopped moving long enough to notice where he was standing.  If he felt even a fraction of what she did when they were flying…

She didn’t think she believed in magic, but she thought this might be what magic felt like, if it was the sort of thing a person believed in.  All fizzy and warm inside, and she realized belatedly that she was laughing as they flew, but so was the Doctor, so it was probably alright.  No, it was more than alright, it was  _brilliant_.

The Doctor would tell her, one day in both of their futures, about the day his TARDIS had spent as a person, how alive she had been, how she’d scolded him and still been so happy to see him, and River would look away politely so they could both pretend his eyes weren’t a little misty.  She wasn’t as disappointed to have missed it as she’d thought she would be.  Seeing the TARDIS in a human body, walking and talking and just as real as her Doctor would have been wonderful.  But she still talked to River, when the Doctor was busy or flying her wrong or had misplaced something.  She couldn’t help being just a tiny bit jealous, though, because the Doctor belonged to the TARDIS and she belonged to him, and that was something River would never have.

_‘You’re wrong, you know.’_ Of course the TARDIS was listening.  She’d probably heard her name being used or something.

_‘Hello, sweetie.  Wrong about what?’_

_‘You’re mine too.  Since before you were a baby.  My River, just like he’s my Doctor.’_

Slowly, River began to smile.   _‘Really?’_

_‘Of course.  Telling you so if it wasn’t true would be completely illogical.  I’d known you were perfect for us for a long time, almost as long as I knew the Doctor was the one I wanted to steal me.’_

The smile was now a wide grin.   _‘Have you always arranged his life for him?’_

_‘Someone has to do it.’_

River was still laughing when the Doctor found her.

**Author's Note:**

> For my favorite Claudia, on the occasion of her birthday. (Which was nearly a year ago and I'm just now posting this here because I am the worst at what I do.)


End file.
